Re:Challenge to scientists: does your ten-year-old code stil...
by Izkata on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @09:14AM
(#24270969)
> Other scientists should be building their own apparatus, writing and running their own code. That the experiment is actually different is what validates the hypothesis, which specifies the salient conditions leading to the outcome.
The problem here is a step before this: The results of these "identical" experiments are so wildly different there is nothing valid to propose, let alone for a recreation to compare against.
Other scientists should be building their own apparatus, writing and running their own code. That the experiment is actually different is what validates the hypothesis, which specifies the salient conditions leading to the outcome.
That an identical experiment leads to an identical outcome fails to validate the hypothesis, because the casual factors may have been misidentified.
Precise reproducibility still matters if generalized reproduction fails, however, because the differences in the experimental implementation may lead to new and more accurate hypothesis about causality.